Law Enforcement Fusion Centers: Cultivating an Information Sharing Environment while Safeguarding Privacy

The national network of fusion centers, of which there are currently 78 nationwide, was created in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and continue to play an integral role in contemporary law enforcement. Their mission, put simply, is to facilitate information sharing across disparate agencies and organizations. Despite a significant presence within the law enforcement landscape, fusion centers have received relatively minimal scholarly attention. This limited literature alludes to operational challenges and public concerns that inhibit fusion center effectiveness. More specifically, little information is known about how fusion centers develop relationships with external partners as well as institute mechanisms to safeguard against violations of individual privacy. The present research employs a combination of national survey data and three in-depth case studies of fusion centers in Florida, Nevada, and Michigan to provide initial answers to these questions. Implications for improved policy and practice are discussed.     

Hemp for Sovereignty: Scale,Territory and the Struggle for Native American sovereignty

This paper considers the question of sovereignty in the context of Native American struggles within the US. In this case, residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation sought political and economic autonomy by growing industrial hemp on the reservation. Their efforts illustrate the importance of geographical scale, territoriality and legal geographies in defining both the question of sovereignty and political struggle in the context of Native American political life, as their activities constitute a larger social movement.     

Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A Cross-National Analysis of Jihadism

Statistics on the national origin of almost one thousand killed and captured foreign fighters in Iraq reveal noticeable differences among Muslim majority countries in their jihadism rate (number of fighters/million population). These cross-national differences are used to test different theories as to the causes of Islamist extremism. The findings do not support those theories which see the cause of jihadism in the political and economic failures of Muslim societies, since the foreign fighters come from the more developed countries. The foreign fighters also come from the more religious societies, and from those societies “occupied” by U.S. or Israeli military forces.     

American Indian religion in the iron house: searching for ‘some accommodation’

Religious freedom claims by American Indian prisoners are disfavored in law and policy more than most prisoner civil rights claims. This disfavor reflects the continuing influence of the cultural distance between traditional Indians and Christianity – a distance with an unfortunate history from the Indian point of view. The salutary effects of Christian religion within prisons have been assumed for as long as prisons have existed; this assumption is based upon scant evidence. Treating Indian religious expression as inferior to Christian religious expression within prisons is often allowed by law, but it is insupportable in policy without reference to the historical power relationship between Indians and the dominant culture. Indian spirituality, like Christianity, can engage prisoners in the moral discourse demanded by the tenets of restorative justice. Accommodation of Indian spirituality is as much in the public interest as accommodation of religion within prisons at all.     

Editorial: Evaluating the Local Government Modernisation Agenda: Impacts,Obstacles and Outcomes

The Appointed State: Quasi‐Governmental Organizations and Democracy. By Chris Skelcher. Open University Press, 1998. Pp.205. £55 hb; £19.99 pb.

Trust and Contracts: Relationships in Local Government, Health and Public Services. Edited by Andrew Coulson. Policy Press, 1998, Pp.309. £16.99 pb.

Ethical Management for the Public Services. By Alan Lawton. Managing the Public Services Series, Open University Press, 1998. £50 hb; £16.99 pb.

The Ethics Edge. Edited by Evan M. Benman, Jonathan P. West and Stephen J. Bonczek. International City/County Management Association, 1998. Pp.346. $23.95.

The Anonymous Leader: Appointed CEOs in Western Local Government. Edited by Kurt Klaudi Klausen and Annick Magnier. Odense University Press, 1998. 3,000 DKK.

Local Councils’ Use of Section 137: A Financial Review of Parish and Town Councils in England and their discretion to spend under Section 137 of the Local Government Act 1972. By Sheila Ellwood, Mike Tricker and Julie Green. Detr, Oct. 1998. Pp.86. £11.

Whitewash: Racialized Politics and the Media. By John Gabriel. Routledge, 1998. Pp.219. £14.99 pb.

The Chief Constables of England and Wales. The Sociolegal History of a Criminal Justice Elite. By David S. Wall. Ashgate, Dartmouth, 1998. Pp.341. £37.50 hb.

Private Security and Public Policing. By Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp.288. £40 hb.

Equality in Managing Service Delivery. By Rohan Collier. Open University Press, 1998. Pp.159. £50 hb; £16.99 pb.

Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard. By Peter Hall and Colin Ward. Wiley, 1998. Pp.229. £45 hb; £15.99 pb.

Transport Networks in Europe — Concepts, Analysis and Policies. Edited by Kenneth Button, Peter Nijkamp and Hugo Priemus. Edward Elgar. Pp.362 (many taken up by (obscure) diagrams and by referencss and other notes). £59.95 hb.

The New Regionalism in Western Europe, Territorial Restructuring and Political Change. By Michael Keating. Edward Elgar, 1998. Pp.242 + xi. £49.95 hb.

Remaking the Union: Devolution and British Politics in the 1990s, edited by Howard Elcock and Michael Keating. Frank Cass, 1998. Pp.216. £32.50 hb; £16.50 pb.     

The Audit Commission's View of Politics: A Critical Evaluation of the CPA Process

The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process introduced in the wake of the Local Government Act 2000 was in essence a managerial tool applied to a political environment. An analysis of the Commission's first tranche of CPA reports reveals a particular perspective on the role of politics and parties in local authorities which raises issues about the Commission's competence and legitimacy to make such judgements. Composite pictures of the ‘good political authority’ and the ‘poor political authority’ can be drawn up, which display a degree of political naivety and a failure to recognise the differences between political and managerial logic. It is concluded that the CPA process should have taken the political culture of an authority as a ‘given’ (at least in the short term), and evaluated the performance of the authority's management in the political circumstances in which they had to operate. Finally the role of the CPA process in contributing to the government-led pressures for depoliticisation of local decision-making is examined, with a particular concern about the substitution of the concept of ‘the good of the area’ for the different priorities and visions of different parties.     

EU–Russia Security Relations and the Survey of Russian Federation Foreign Policy: One Year On

Abstract

The Kremlin's change of leadership on 7 May 2008 and growing international fears of Russia's resurgence, especially in the aftermath of the Georgian conflict, make this an interesting time to reflect upon EU–Russia security relations. This article does so by examining closely the Survey of Russian Federation Foreign Policy and, one year on from its approval, drawing upon subsequent developments as preliminary corollary or otherwise of its bearing on policy. On balance, it seems that the Kremlin's evolving perception of Russia and international relations has encouraged revised priorities and objectives and a more forceful foreign policy that not only slow progress in filling the Common Spaces, but also increase the likelihood of Russia–EU competition especially in their shared neighbourhood.     

A king's Indian defence?

The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia, by Peter Hopkirk. John Murray, London, 1991. xiv + 526 pp., maps, 24 pp. plates. £19.95. ISBN 0–7195–4727‐X.

Roads and Rivals: The Politics of Access in the Borderlands of Asia, by Mahnaz Z. Ispahani. I. B. Tauris, London, 1991. xvi + 286 pp., maps. £22.95 ($37.80). ISBN 1–85043–145–0.